Thermaltake BlacX Duet 5G USB 3.0 Docking Station Storage   Page 1

Reviewer: RWL Staff Article Publish Date: 11/7/2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

    As most of you are well aware due to recent flooding’s in Taiwan HDD prices have taken a turn for the worse and have almost doubled in most places around the globe and it's is going to be quite a few months (my calculations say almost 7) until prices drop at the same levels as they were in September. Of course that does not mean that people have stopped buying hard disk drives, quite the opposite actually since in less than a month there simply won't be any units left to sell so most people consider that to be the worst case scenario and not the prices. However because of this entire situation we decided to shift our focus onto something related to HDDs and so today we are taking a look at the latest USB 3.0 dual docking bay by Thermaltake called the BlacX Duet 5G.

 

 

    Since the beginning of Thermaltake in 1999, they have been at the forefront of creating new and exciting products at a time where most computer users were provided little to no choices for components that may seem irrelevant, but in reality crucial to the performance of a PC. Thermaltake Server Series solutions, with years of thermal experience and industry leadership, sets its goal on reforming total thermal management in server segment by formulating the perfect mixture of versatility, efficiency and thermal management with each respective server product category: Rackmount Chassis, Server Fixed & Redundant Power Supply and Server CPU Cooling Management Solutions. With its comprehensive line of products available, it enables Thermaltake's core customers to enjoy a one-stop-shop experience, reduce product design-in evaluation period and most important of all, flawless integration process. Each of Thermaltake's strengths enables its customer to focus on their core business while taking advantage of the skills and efficiency of a single thermal management solution partner.

 

 

    Docking stations are one of the very few things I’ve used during the past years that have really simplified the way i work with HDDs since i no longer need to mount them into my PC or house them inside an external enclosure, even if that's a hot-swap one. Of course this is only a temporary solution since you can't actually have a drive naked for long periods of time (not that it would be a problem if you're cautious enough) but still docking stations are a huge help to people who work with HDD data transfers all the time. The BlacX Duet 5G by Thermaltake may not be the only dual bay USB 3.0 docking station we have ever seen but it's certainly amongst the smaller ones and so if you have space limitations such a solution is more ideal than other larger ones (like the ZALMAN ZM-MH200 U3). Performance-wise Thermaltake is going head to head with Zalman but unlike the ZM-MH200 U3 the BlacX Duet 5G doesn’t come with RAID0/1 modes. True such a feature is not very crucial for a docking station but it would be nice to see with the BlacX Duet 5G as well.